Maths Olympiad Prep

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, 2019

Geometry Difficulty 8.4 Shortlist Prove it Romania

Let ABCABC be an acute triangle such that AB<ACAB < AC. Let II be the incentre of the triangle ABCABC, and let the incircle touch the side BCBC at DD. The line ADAD crosses the circle ABCABC again at EE. Let MM be the midpoint of the side BCBC, and let NN be the midpoint of the circular arc BACBAC. The line ENEN crosses the circular arc BICBIC at PP. Show that the lines ADAD and MPMP are parallel.

Ukraine National Olympiad, 2016

Solution

The internal bisectrix AIAI and the perpendicular bisectrix MNMN of the side BCBC cross at the midpoint KK of the arc BECBEC. It is a fact that the circle BICBIC is centred at KK.

Let now the line MPMP cross the circle BICBIC again at QQ, to infer that the arcs BLBL and CQCQ of this circle have equal angular spans, so LL and QQ are reflexions of one another in the perpendicular bisectrix KMNKMN of the chord BCBC.
Project QQ orthogonally to QQ' on BCBC and refer to standard notation in the triangle ABCABC: aa, bb, cc denote the lengths of the sides BCBC, CACA, ABAB, respectively, s=(a+b+c)/2s = (a + b + c)/2 denotes its semiperimeter, rr its inradius, and SS its area. With reference to standard formulae, write CQ=BD=sbCQ' = BD = s - b and
QQ=DL=DBDCDI=(sb)(sc)r=ssa, QQ' = DL = \frac{DB \cdot DC}{DI} = \frac{(s-b)(s-c)}{r} = \frac{s}{s-a},
to infer that QQ is the AA-excentre of the triangle ABCABC, so it lies on the line AIKAIK.
Finally, write PQA=PQI=PLI=ELI=EAI=DAQ\angle PQA = \angle PQI = \angle PLI = \angle ELI = \angle EAI = \angle DAQ, to conclude that the lines ADAD and MPMP are indeed parallel.

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